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A couple of new old projects.

Sep23

I was rummaging and found these two. The quilt top was one of the first projects I made with our looms. I used the Tiny Weaver set, the 3 1/2″  square and triangle, to make this quilt top. I ran it though the washer and found some quilt batting and fabric for a backing and now it’s a proper quilt. I think it’s about crib size. The backing color is not ideal, but it was the only bit of fabric I could find in my stash that fit.

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The other thing I found was a blouse I made for myself back in the day, too. It has used an assortment of loom sizes. The 12″ and the 3 1/2″ I think. The yoke and sleeves in this one are knitted. I can’t recall off hand what the yarn is called but it’s a sport weight (I think) cotton. It was comfortable and nice to wear but you probably notice that I am speaking in the past tense. Well, you know how things go when you ‘grow up’.

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But now we’re almost ready to leave for Canby and OFFF. Randy is finishing up his 7 foot shawl loom. He promised someone (Sorry but we can neither of us remember who) that he’d have one this year. I think I am ready. Tomorrow I take the cats in to the ‘motel’ & buy groceries for the trailer and Thursday we hit the road. Keep your fingers x-ed for a cool but dry weekend!

Do come see us if you can!

Busy Bees!

Sep20

Well, we’re not bees but busy we are! Having been gone about a week and a half to fiber shows we have a lot of catching up to do before we leave again for Canby and the Oregon Flock and Fiber Fair. Got rained out last year… well, more like blown out, so are watching the forecasts closely. This was the Natural Fiber Fair in Arcata, Ca. I failed to get a picture in Booneville, where the event was held in conjunction with the county fair, midway and all. It was pretty exciting!

Arcata 2014

Meantime, we found orders for over 70 looms when we got back plus ripe tomatoes and wind fall apples that are attracting the deer and  have to be canned this week. The apples might wait but the tomatoes and beans wouldn’t. And trip laundry and 200+emails lol Such problems! Anyway, if you are waiting for your order, please be patient, we are peddling as fast as we can!

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The fairs were enjoyable and we sold looms and made a few new weavers, I think. We did some ‘boondocking’  at the ocean side, too, which was fun. Going to sleep with the sound of the crashing waves was at first a bit of a challenge. Crashing was certainly the correct word! I hadn’t realized how much noise water hitting on rocks would be. Much more than our little stream running over the smallish dam here at home.

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But speaking of water sounds, we got to go to sleep with the sound of falling rain a couple nights ago! That was indeed a welcomed sound! A neighboring town, just over the hill, has suffered quite a tragedy, they are saying at least a quarter of the town has burned. I feel much better  with this rain and more predicted for next week.

And I think I have my Weaving for your Doll book nearly ready. Last evening I got to finish the leotard  and will try to get photo’s for it today between shop work and applesauce! But now I need to get Himself some breakfast and go to work. Hope you get some weaving time today!

 

Adventures in Nature

Aug17

The beavers are building a nice lake in the woods nearby. Turtles, fish, mosquitoes, lots of critters enjoying the water. also water cress and blackberries thriving there. Trouble is those creative builders want ALL the water. We would like a bit of it to come down stream so about every two weeks we have to go  and modify their dam.  We don’t take it out because we like them and everybody ought to be able to enjoy the water and we just want a share. So far it’s been working fine.

I don’t usually go but I wanted to see their operation. They dont’ show their little rodent-y faces while we’re there of course so no beaver pictures but here’s some of their operation. Looking down stream from atop the dam.

Looking downstream off the dam

Lake Beaver. It really extends quite a way upstream, further than the camera could capture. A nice lake. Beaver Treasure lake

Modifying

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He moves it to the secondary dam and then they spend the next two weeks building it back up. Keeps them both busy. And then we get blackberries. Even some that are almost out of reach!

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Not what I started but…

Aug7

I think it worked out okay, tho a more simple garment. I know poncho’s haven’t really been in style since Martha Stewart got out of jail but I’ve never had one and thought it might really work as well as a shrug for those coolish times of the day when you don’t really want a sweater. For one thing, sleeves are difficult in the shop. The sleeves either catch on the nails or sweep them off the work table, then I have to get out my handy dandy magnet on a handle and get them up off the floor. And same thing just sitting and weaving, they get hung up on everything. Not sure this garment will work any better but I’m going to try it. After trying it on again, I think I might end up adding a couple more rows to the neckline to raise it a bit, but I might wait until cooler weather to decide if I need that. I fitted a 12″ triangle at the back neck to raise the back a bit.  I just about had a heat stroke wearing this for Himself to take the photo. lol What with the smoke from the fire and the thunder storms, the heat and humidity are trapped at ground level here and it gets pretty uncomfortable. But here’s what I came up with. I’ve had some suggestions for the shrug and I have more Jiffy so it is still a possibility. But next on my to-do is tending to the peach crop!

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Fire pictures

Aug4

I know there are other fires in Ca and other states where people are losing their homes that are much more scary than ours is at the moment but it is still scary being this close. I am just glad there are fire fighters to spare for us. Here are a couple rather dramatic photos taken by area people with longer shot distances that I have here at the foot of Billy’s Peak.

I’m not sure from where this one was taken.

Marti Mullions picture

This one was taken from the Trinity Center airport, 8 miles down highway 3 from here.

from Trinity Center Airport at about 2 p.m. 8-3-14

This one was taken from the East Fork road, but E Fork of the Trinity, not E Fork of Coffee Creek where the fire is. We live at the foot of this Mt. The fire is just behind and to the west (left) of it. This is what it looks like in the morning. The brown air is all the way to the ground. Weather forecast for the next few days is more thunder storms and the possibility of “heavy rain”. Do pray for that part!

Benji's

 

 

Fire!

Aug2

Well, I hope we don’t have to evacuate. So far it seems to be moving west and north, into the wilderness and away from us but still too close for comfort and the sun is red this afternoon.  Details, but I’m not sure this link will work.

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Tri Shawl

Jul30

That didn’t take long! Fast to weave and I found an interesting way to assemble that also added about an inch to each seam so makes the shawl a bit bigger for my single ball of yarn. Found this purple in my stash for the trim and like the way it looks. Took 15 triangles. I left the tip off as I really don’t need an arrow pointing ‘there’.

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The join, in case you’re liking that, is a 5 stitch dc shell. Since I used the 14″ Tri it worked out this way: On the short side: 2 sc, skip 1 loop, *shell, sk 2,  slip stitch, sk 2* but you’ll need to adjust for your size. It’s the same basic thing so not a problem how many you skip or don’t skip. To join, work the same thing but dc 3 then slip your hook out and into the center stitch of the opposite shell and draw the loop though, then dc two more to finish the shell. Try to keep the right side up, which I failed to pay attention to at first, but it really doesn’t show much in the shawl unless you really look for it. I finished the shawl edge with a row of sc and a row of reverse sc in the shawl yarn and the top edge is just dc adjusted to lay flat.

My shawl measures 62″ wide by 30″ deep. My yarn, a soft merino, had a lot of draw-up so my tris are about 11″ on the side. Yours will likely be larger depending, of course, on your yarn and weaving tension. The shell join adds about an inch to each seam.

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Okay, your turn. A quick project for summer to have you ready for fall!

Tri Shawl

Jul28

I started weaving these triangles in Eugene last month thinking that tho I tell people they can weave shawls with the small looms, I have never made one myself & really ought to. I have this ball of some 600+ yards which should  give me quite a few tris…  It’s a light worsted 100% merino, very nice but with a lot of stretch and as a result, a lot of draw up. Which I didn’t really pay much attention at first. I am weaving on the 14″ triangle but my tris measure 11 1/2  to 12 inches on a side. I need two more tris to finish a shawl of about 62″ hypotenuse. I still have quite a bit of yarn but not enough to make it another row wide. Anyway, by the time I get it assembled and maybe add a fringe or edging (more likely) I’ll probably be running short. Did I say I still need to weave two tris? I wove 4 or 5 yesterday so it’s going pretty fast. I still have all those 4″ Multi squares that I haven’t quite figure out what to do with. Well, it’s July and hot so yarn thoughts are not coming thick and fast! =) Hope you’re getting in a little weaving these days, tho. Good time to work on a shawl which will come in handy when you can use a light wrap later this fall, you know.

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Just thinking…

Jul19

It’s July and too hot to be doing much with yarn. I am working on a project for a book to be published by somebody else. I hope I can get it done in time.

But meantime, cleaning up the kitchen this morning, I got to thinking about dishrags. Lots of people weave them on the looms, Sis is one of them. I have also done it but mostly for the how-to pictures. I have clung to my sponges. But awhile back Sis gave me a stack of her old faded ones to use as rags in the shop or somewhere. I just shoved them in the kitchen towel drawer. The other day I got a bug to clean out the overflowing drawer and remembered seeing on someones blog that she had a basket in her kitchen filled with old dishrags, etc to use as clean up rags and save paper towels so I got out one of my hand made baskets (arthritis won’t allow that anymore) and put them all in it. And have started using them for that purpose. And I think I am converted! They are easy to rinse out and hang on the edge of the sink to dry. It was too easy to toss the sponge into the sink where it probably grew some really nasty stuff. I know I went though a lot of them. I remember reading in a “green” magazine that it was actually cheaper and more energy efficient to  use paper towels. The author if this piece having proved to herself that the manufacture and delivery of the paper towels saved more energy that the washing of dish cloths. I am going to equate the making of the paper towels with the manufacture of yarn, energy wise. And I refuse to think of the “energy” spent weaving the cloths as effecting the global climate, so will skip to the washing. If you ran a batch just for the dishrags, yeah, that would count, but who does that? You toss the in with whatever batch seems appropriate to your style of doing laundry and as that energy would be used with or without the cloths that also can’t be counted against your ‘carbon footprint’. So it seems to me that the handwoven cloth is going to come off ahead however you look at it. There’s a little water used to rise the cloth but I usually rinsed the sponges and often the paper towels as I use the tough ones so that can’t add to much.

And more to the point… The dishrags woven with kitchen cotton do a much better job of cleaning! That’s really the part that converted me. I am going to have to weave a few more of these handy bits. I’ve had some people tell me they use them as wash cloths, too. I’ll have to give that a try next.

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